Rocacorba Daily: Tuesday April 23

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In this morning’s Rocacorba Daily we’ve got the latest from an eventful second stage at the Tour of Turkey, some more of the fallout from Liege-Bastogne-Liege and a whole host of other items from the world of cycling. Enjoy!

Kruopis wins stage 2 at Tour of Turkey

Aidis Kruopis (Orica-GreenEDGE) has avoided a massive crash in the closing kilometre of the Tour of Turkey’s second stage, going on to win his first race for the year.

The flat stage from Alanya to Antalya was expected to finish with a bunch sprint and with only a kilometre to go, teams were organising themselves to launch their fastest men to the line. But the crash brought down all but a handful of riders and Kruopis proved strongest in the dash for the line.

A group of six riders escaped 5km into the race and held a maximum advantage of more than 6 minutes before the peloton got organised and reeled the breakaway (and a couple of counterattacks) back in. With 10km left in the stage, it was all back together and looked headed for a final sprint.

Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) leads the general classification after two stages in the eight-stage tour. Kruopis is in second place with the same time and Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano) rounds out the top three.

Click here to see the full results and a final kilometres video from stage 2 of the 2013 Tour of Turkey.

Renshaw breaks collarbone in Tour of Turkey crash

The crash that brought down half the peloton in last night’s Tour of Turkey stage saw Australian sprinter Mark Renshaw (Blanco) break his collarbone, sustain concussion and lose a tooth or two.

Renshaw was leading out his teammate Theo Bos inside the final kilometre when the crash happened and the two Blanco riders (along with half the field) hit the deck. Renshaw is currently in hospital and will soon travel to the Netherlands for surgery on his collarbone and to see a dentist. Bos spent some time in hospital after the stage but was cleared of any serious damage and could start tonight’s 3rd stage.

Check out the video of the crash below:

Is Andy Schleck back on track?

He mightn’t have got close to replicating his 2009 victory at Sunday’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege but it was still encouraging to see Andy Schleck not only finish the race, but to see him in the mix towards the end.

Schleck finished 41st overall, 1:20 behind eventual winner Dan Martin, but was only dispatched from the main field on the final climb: the Côte de Saint-Nicolas. He told reporters after the race:

“I’ve had some encouraging signs as I’ve worked hard these past few weeks. I finished 41st here, I can’t say that it’s a great result – I clearly don’t have the sensations that I had in 2009, when I won, or in 2010 or 2011, but it’s not too bad all the same.”

Schleck has only finished one stage race — the Criterium International — in the past 18 months having struggled with injury, form and motivation. Here’s hoping, for Andy’s sake and for the sake of the sport, that the Luxembourger continues to find form as the season progresses.

Trash talk at Liege-Bastogne-Liege

by Jono Lovelock

There was talk going around the pro peloton in the lead up to Liege-Bastogne-Liege over the issue of littering in races and what is and isn’t acceptable. We’ve all dropped or thrown a bottle or a gel wrapper at some stage in our racing careers and it seems to remain a fairly sensitive topic. We know at times that littering is not the right thing to do. In reality though, when you are on the rivet you just do not always think straight.

American ex-pro and infamous blogger Steve Tilford always strikes up a cracking discussion on his blog and on this topic it’s no different. You can read his thoughts here and more about the issue here.

Tour de Romandie preview

The six-day Tour de Romandie kicks off tonight with a 7.5km uphill individual time trial prologue from Le Chable to Bruson in Western Switzerland. Four hilly road stages will follow tonight’s prologue before the race finishes on Sunday night with a flat 18.6km ITT in Geneva.

Click here to see the startlist and more information about the 2013 Tour de Romandie.

Did they Dope? From Wiggins to LeMond

by Jono Lovelock

Rather than producing the usual glossy magazine in the lead-up to the Tour de France one avid fan has gone to the trouble of producing a preview magazine that answers all the questions we ever had about doping and the TdF. Due out on the 7th of June “Did they Dope?” looks like it will raise some eyebrows.

Click here to see some extracts from the magazine (in French) and here for more information. You can follow the author on Twitter here.

Bicycle Network’s two-question infrastructure survey

To quote directly from the survey intro:

Welcome to Bicycle Network’s survey to identify your key priorities and peeves on the road.

Our purpose as a charity that promotes the health of the community is simply to get More People Cycling More Often. We believe that it’s critical for infrastructure to match up with where you’re riding – and, with the added weight of your voice, we can add to the list of key priorities to lobby government on.

This survey should take you around one minute to complete.
Number of Questions: just two!

BikeSpike could protect your bike remotely

Here’s a different way of protecting your bike: using a remote, digital bike lock. BikeSpike uses GPS to detect whether your bike has moved outside of a designated area and uses an accelerometer to show if it’s been tampered with. If someone is messing with your ride, you’ll be notified via your smartphone where you can track the bike (and the thief) or share the info with police.

Once attached to your bike, the $150 gadget (in combination with a smartphone) can be used to track speed, distance travelled and the route you’ve taken, just like a normal GPS.

Seeing red over light-running cyclists?

by Jono Lovelock

The relationship between cars and bikes continues to be studied from every angle, and just this month the Centre for Automotive Safety Research (CASR) at the University of Adelaide has published a report about car and cyclist collisions. Perhaps the most interesting thing to take from the study was that red-light-running by cyclists only contributed to 1% of collisions.

It’s worth nothing that although red-light-running might annoy motorists, perhaps it’s not something we should focus on if it is such a small contributor to accidents on the open road. Surely addressing the factors that cause crashes and therefore have a demonstrable cost on society is the most productive course of action for police and policy makers. What are your thoughts? Are we seeing red over nothing?

Lance Armstrong plays drums with Lance Herbstrong

Lance Armstrong has a way of getting himself noticed, even when he’s nowhere near a bike. This time he was on stage with the “stoner rock” band from his home town of Austin: Lance Herbstrong. Yep. Here’s how the band describe themselves on their website:

“Through stream-of-consciousness aural atmospherics, Lance Herbstrong takes you on a trip, sustaining musical momentum with sonic layers propelling the rhythms. The result is music that is ethereal and organic, of the air and of the earth, and always moving. The nation’s most esteemed climate scientists described their first Lance Herbstrong show as a ‘motherf***in Fun Bomb that just goes off inside you.’

Click here to see a video of Lance sitting in with Lance Herbstrong, playing drums no less. Bizarre.

Extreme downhill trail in Bolivia

And here’s something both impressive and terrifying to finish with today. There are so many technical sections in this downhill run and so many that demand absolute precision, lest the rider go plummeting of the side of the mountain. Great to watch, bit also scary. Click here to get to the video.

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Notso Swift

Those South American downhillers definitely put the X in extreme. So many ways to die in 3 minutes…

MadBlack

What are you talking about?!? All the power poles were padded! Totally save! HaHa!
Although their balls must be so big that they’re barely able to straddle the bikes!

jules

red light running by cyclists is a classic example of a law with a low degree of public acceptance (particularly amongst cyclists). chaos almost always ensues, as people struggle to reconcile their perceived duty to uphold the rule of law with that lingering feeling that they should just ignore it*.

one of the most frequently cited reasons by cyclists for why they should obey red lights is to keep motorists happy. don’t adjust your TV, the world has gone out of focus.

the public have a right to expect that laws serve a purpose – the need to obey rules for their own sake is never a convincing justification. suggesting the police don’t focus on it is also confusing – is it legal or not? what should be reviewed is the rule itself. not gonna happen though – we’re obsessed with introducing greater numbers of and more stringent rules – the notion of relaxing them makes govt policy makers rock back and forth in their swivel chairs while staring into space ahead, until their manager eventually comes around and assures them they will only ever be asked to introduce more, not less rules and they start to feel better again.

Look, I realize that occasionally you can fumble and drop a gel packet, but frankly I reckon the pros should just suck it up and make the effort to put the empty gels in their pockets. Even if the majority of amateurs don’t drop their gel packets, enough do that it results in complaints from locals at club races, and amateurs really do take their behavioural cues from the pros.

Notso Swift

Pro dropping biddon’s isn’t an issue 99% are collected, but other wrappers are, I think I remember a couple of years ago some of them getting fines in a Dutch race (real civil fines, not from the organisers)

Empty gels under the band in your shorts ;-)

MadBlack

That’s exactly right! The pro’s were winging and whining about helmets also and now it’s not even a point of discussion anymore. Make it a rule that you can be penalized for deliberately dropping rubbish similarly to holding onto cars for too long or getting caught doing No.1’s on camera.

Problem solved!

Anonymous

Agree. The idea that littering a public space is OK because you’re in a bike race is risible. But gel wrappers, they’re horrible. I believe the tri chaps use refillable containers – no sticky fingers and no litter.

Race administration should take a lead here. In the absence of self regulation it will get done by others, a la the Belgian police in the above reference.

Andy

Despite getting salmonella poisoning when I was there, La Paz was an amazing city to visit. Also bizarre to be in a place where the poor live up the hills while the rich live down in the valley.